1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information collection and management systems, and in particular but not by way of limitation, to transportation planning and logistical management systems.
2. Background of the Invention
Existing transportation management systems suffer from significant drawbacks that make logistical planning difficult and often unnecessarily time consuming and expensive. For example, existing electronic travel products offer travelers little more than an attractive graphical user interface (“GUI”) on top of a decades-old Global Distribution System (“GDS”) that was created merely to distribute a significant amount of perishable airline data to travel agencies. That is, existing electronic travel systems offer only a user friendly graphically interface for interacting with an antiquated data management system.
In particular, these existing electronic travel systems require a traveler to know a great deal of information prior to making travel arrangements. Travelers, for example, are expected to know which airports could be appropriate for particular destinations and which flight arrival times are available at each appropriate airport. Moreover, travelers are expected to know which flight arrival times are early enough to meet the traveler's particular needs. However, to know which flight times are appropriate, the traveler must also know the driving distance and/or driving time between the airport(s) and the traveler's destination.
Because of this lack of information made available through existing systems, travelers must research travel information prior to actually using those systems. Unfortunately, travel information is presently spread throughout various sources varying from electronic sources to co-workers, to friends and business contacts. Thus, presently there is no easy and efficient way to electronically make travel arrangements without significant independent research prior to actually scheduling the travel. Moreover, corporations often unnecessarily waste money because their employees do not travel in the most efficient manner. That is, employees that schedule their own travel might overlook less expensive—but equally as acceptable—options such as flying into San Jose rather than San Francisco for a meeting that is scheduled in Palo Alto.
Accordingly, a system and method are needed to overcome the deficiencies of existing systems as described above and other deficiencies as recognized by those skilled in the art. In particular, a system and method are needed for accumulating, consolidating, and managing travel information to thereby make logistical planning simpler.